Case Western Reserve University to choose an architect from four finalists to design its new Tinkham Veale University Center

Stephen Campbell
, the university's vice president for campus planning and facilities management, declined to identify the finalists, but said Thursday that "there are high design firms as part of the group we're considering, in part because of the aspirational aesthetic needs for the facility established by [CWRU President] Barbara [Snyder] and others."

Campbell said the university's selection committed whittled a "long list" of potential candidates before narrowing the field to eight, and then the final four.

The University Center, with which CWRU wants to make a strong urban statement, will be prominently sited in University Circle along East Boulevard at Bellflower Road, near the Cleveland Museum of Art and Severance Hall.

The site presents enormous physical and conceptual difficulties. It's irregular in shape. It includes a large underground parking garage, which serves Severance Hall and the Kelvin Smith Library. And it's surrounded by buildings in a variety of clashing styles, with oddly shaped outdoor spaces around them.

"We recognize that the building has to hold its own against some very prominent neighbors," Campbell said. "It's a tough problem to solve."

Severance Hall and the Cleveland Museum of Art are neoclassical, and date from the early 20th century, although the museum's expansion, designed by Raphael Vinoly, takes inspiration from the Brutalist architecture of Marcel Breuer, who designed a prior museum expansion in 1971.

The schizophrenic environment in part symbolizes CWRU's uneven and uncertain approach to architecture and campus planning in recent decades. The University Center represents an opportunity to pull everything together -- but it won't be an easy task.

Furthermore, the future of the site immediately to the north along Bellflower Road at East Boulevard, is unknown. The Cleveland Institute of Art will be vacating the property as it unifies its campus at the nearby Uptown development. The art institute could then sell the five-acre site to any number of potential suitors, from CWRU to private developers.

Campbell said that despite the challenges, the University Center project "has all the makings to develop a great architectural expression, both because of the programmatic aspirations and a very prominent site."

As for architectural style, Campbell said the university isn't locked into a particular viewpoint. "We have a good range of stylistic approaches."

The project has received $10.5 million for the project from a charitable trust established by Kent Hale Smith and his wife, Thelma, and $20 million from the Veale Foundation. The latter gift determined the center's name.

Campbell said he expects Snyder and university trustees to appoint an architect by February.

While the general location of the building has been selected, the precise footprint will be up to the architects, Campbell said.

It's unclear whether the Philip Johnson "
Turning Point
" sculptures will remain in their current location at the eastern edge of the site, along a cross-campus diagonal pathway, Campbell said.

"They're in a fairly pinched portion of the site adjacent to a loading dock" of an underground parking garage, Campbell said of the sculptures.

"It's on the table as to whether that location for the sculptures continues to make sense or whether there's a better utilization of the site that would demand relocation." Even if the sculptures are moved, Campbell said CWRU is committed to keeping them.

Campbell said the Philadelphia architecture and engineering firm of
Ballinger
will complete a conceptual plan for the University Center, along with a cost estimate.

The conceptual plan is intended to test assumptions about how the building will be programmed, and about cost, not to limit the imagination of the architectural team chosen for the project.

Campbell said the University Center will serve both undergraduate and graduate students.

The university, for its part, wants something flexible and capable of evolution as education and technology evolve in the future.

Campbell said the new building will play a key role on campus. It will help knit together the formerly separate campuses of the Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University, which joined in 1967 to form CWRU.

The University Center will be "a central hub, and a symbolic joining of the two prior institutions," Campbell said.